“Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?”—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)

“Savages cling to a local god of one tribe or town. The broad ethics of Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an election or favoritism.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)

“The Federal Constitution has stood the test of more than a hundred years in supplying the powers that have been needed to make the Central Government as strong as it ought to be, and with this movement toward uniform legislation and agreements between the States I do not see why the Constitution may not serve our people always.”—William Howard Taft (18571930)

“The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cerealthat you can gather votes like box topsis, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”—Adlai Stevenson (19001965)

“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at workthe only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”—Vance Palmer (18851959)